Anchor Raises $10M in Series A. So, I would have titled this item as “Another Fundraise,” but I did that the last time, and really there’s no telling how many more there is to come. Not any more at this point, anyhow.

The once-buzzy social audio platform that seeks to “democratize the creation and consumption of audio” — more so than it is right now, I suppose — has bucked the trend of investment money being funneled into primary podcast businesses and secured $10 million of its own, bringing its overall funding volume to $15 million. The Series A round, led by Google Ventures (or GV), includes the return of Accel, Betaworks (which has also invested in Gimlet), Eniac Ventures, and The Chernin Group (where former Midroll CEO Adam Sachs now calls home) as participants, along with Homebrew, Atlantic Records’ CEO Craig Kallman, and author Nir Eyal as new contributors…

Gimlet receives $5 million in additional funding from WPP, the biggest advertising holdings company in the world. Recode’s Peter Kafka has the write-up if you’re looking for it, with the money summary: “This is an extension of the $15 million round Gimlet raised last month, which valued the company at $55 million pre-money; it brings the company’s total funding to $27 million.” He also adds: “The deal is as small as it gets for WPP, which generated $19.4 billion in revenue last year.”

I think this development should be read as symbolically meaningful above anything else…

Yesterday, HowStuffWorks announced a $15 million Series A funding round led by The Raine Group, and more importantly, the company announced that it will be spinning out from its parent company — an ad tech firm called System1, weirdly enough, which it landed under following a circuitous ownership route — and now operate as its own independent entity.

Last week saw the latest edition of the Public Radio Program Directors conference in Washington DC, and there are two threads from that event worth tracking. The first comes from a panel that revolves around local station efforts in podcasting, which gathered NHPR’s Maureen McMurray (off the strength of Civics 101, among others), WBEZ’s Joel Meyer (off the strength of Making Oprah), Minnesota Public Radio’s Jonathan Blakely (74 Seconds), and NPR director of programming Steve Nelson.